Back and spinal disc surgery remains a difficult and tedious process. Accessing spinal discs is extremely complicated, as soft tissue is traumatized and sacrificed, with the length of convalescence proportional to the amount of the surgical impact on the soft tissue. Moreover, conventional spinal disc surgery causes traction on organs and tissues in the path of the surgical instrumentation needed to access the annulus.
Accessing the annulus may require passage through the ilio-psoas muscle, which houses the lumbar plexus. When instrumentation is passed through these muscles to access the annulus, it is mandatory to monitor the presence of neural elements in the trajectory of the instrumentation.
In addition, almost all of the conventional surgical techniques for spinal disc surgery use retractors. The retractors are placed within a slit in the ilio-psoas muscle, and the retractor blades are commonly fixed by screws or pins driven into the vertebral bodies, which border the disc being accessed. The blades must be pushed apart with the utmost of care, to avoid plexus injuries, which if they occur, could cause serious, or even fatal, injury to the patient.